Estrangement from Republican leaders clouds the White House’s agenda
With virtually no Republican votes to spare in the Senate, where his agenda hangs in the balance, he has nonetheless become estranged from two key figures in his own party. First it was John McCain of Arizona, over his defiance of the president on health care. Next it was Bob Corker of Tennessee.. Mr. McCain is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Mr. Corker is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thus, the president is alienated from the two most important Senate figures on national security at a time when two critical national-security issues are coming to a boil: the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran and the increasingly dangerous standoff with North Korea... “Bannon’s current obsession is to blow up Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Senate incumbents whom he regards as hostile to his brand of nationalism.”.. Mr. Trump would like to lead, and Mr. Bannon would like to create, a Republican Party different from the one that exists. It would be a party molded in the Trump image: nationalist, skeptical of immigration and trade agreements, dubious about the virtues of diplomacy and international negotiations, with economic strategies skewed to help workers in traditional American industries... wants the GOP to be the party “of the American worker.”.. The current version of the GOP was built largely by merging the interests of the business community with the agenda of social conservatives. Neither of those groups would win top billing in the vision for a new, Trump-inspired party... it isn’t at all clear that such a new Republican Party would, in fact, be a majority party... The current party has just 52 members in the Senate, and, as noted, Mr. Trump doesn’t have the loyal support of all of them. Mr. Bannon and his allies are threatening to challenge other Republican incumbents in primary elections next year, which won’t exactly keep those targeted at his side.
Trump’s Fight with Corker Jeopardizes His Legislative Agenda
In unloading on Mr. Trump, Mr. Corker, a two-term senator from Tennessee, said in public what many of his Republican colleagues say in private — that
- the president is dangerously erratic and unstable, that
- he treats his high post like a television show and that
- he is reckless enough to stumble the country into a nuclear war.
.. The president has already seen what can happen with a 52-vote Senate caucus that can be thwarted by the defection of just three Republicans. Until now, Mr. Corker has not been one of the renegades on those high-drama votes that killed Mr. Trump’s health care legislation. By himself, Mr. Corker could make it that much harder for the president to hold a fragile majority on upcoming votes on taxes, among other priorities — and if he emboldens other Republican doubters, it could add to Mr. Trump’s challenge.
The White House spent Monday morning telling its allies that Mr. Corker is responsible for the fight, not Mr. Trump, and that the senator was an attention-seeking obstructionist. But few of Mr. Trump’s allies accepted that narrative. One close associate of the president, who asked not to be identified to discuss the situation more candidly, said Mr. Trump’s entire agenda could be dead because Mr. Corker has a lot of friends on Capitol Hill.
.. “every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”
.. many Senate Republicans no doubt were relieved not to be in session this week
.. repeatedly blocked, lashing out at Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party leader, for not getting the job done. He has also engaged in open conflicts with Senators
- John McCain and
- Jeff Flake of Arizona,
- Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina and
- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, among others.
.. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and his allies were incredulous that the president would anger a senator just a week before a budget vote that is critical to tax cuts when the party’s 52-vote majority can be thwarted by just three defections.
.. “Under the normal, traditional rules of politics of the last 40 years of my life, a president would not poke a senator in the eye when he has a two-seat majority and a major legislative agenda needing to be accomplished,” said former Representative Thomas M. Reynolds
.. “Corker’s comments carry credibility because of his reputation as a thoughtful senator not known for shooting from the hip,” he said. “There is an old saying in politics: Don’t pick a fight with someone who has nothing to lose.”
.. Stephen K. Bannon, acting in what he says is the president’s interest, is organizing a rebellion against the Republican establishment and recruiting candidates to challenge incumbent senators in primaries next year. Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff has talked about a “purge” of Republicans who are not loyal to Mr. Trump.
.. They also stood against him when he engaged in a protracted public campaign against his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, a former colleague of theirs in the Senate, warning him that if he fired Mr. Sessions they would not confirm a successor
.. “Guys like Bob Corker, I think, have reached the point where it’s like, ‘Can we not pretend the emperor is not naked? Can we not pretend the emperor is not unstable in a way that we should’ve understood very, very clearly more than a year or two years ago?’” Charlie Sykes
.. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Corker could single-handedly block the confirmation of a new secretary of state should Mr. Trump push out his embattled chief diplomat, Rex W. Tillerson
.. He would presumably play a key role in any decision on whether to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. And as a longtime deficit hawk, he could also become a challenge for Mr. Trump as the president seeks to pass deep tax cuts that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt.
.. said to have told associates that the 5-foot-7 senator was too short.
Trump attacks Corker, who responds by calling the White House ‘adult day care’
President Trump instigated an extraordinary feud Sunday with Sen. Bob Corker, a senior Republican who holds sway over the administration’s foreign and domestic policy agenda, prompting the Tennessean to charge that the White House had devolved into “an adult day care center.”
.. The trash talk not only breaches what had been one of Trump’s few personal relationships on Capitol Hill, but also jeopardizes the president’s legislative priorities. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Corker will help determine the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and his support will be critical in passing sweeping tax cuts.
.. Corker tweeted a biting retort: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
.. Corker told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.”
.. Trump, who has little tolerance for public criticism and prides himself on counterpunching those who cross him, took to Twitter on Sunday to attack Corker.
.. Womack said Trump has repeatedly offered to support Corker, and as recently as last week asked the senator to change his mind and run for reelection.
“The president called Senator Corker on Monday afternoon and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection and reaffirmed that he would have endorsed him, as he has said many times,” Womack said in a statement.
.. Corker has been one of Tillerson’s few allies and staunch defenders in Washington, working closely on such issues as toughening sanctions on Russia and engaging North Korea diplomatically — two issues on which Trump has disagreed with Corker.
.. Corker also looks to play a key role in the upcoming debate over taxes. One of the Senate’s most committed deficit hawks and outspoken members on budgetary issues, Corker already has expressed concerns with the Trump administration’s proposal on tax cuts, and his vote will be key to any deal getting done.
.. In recent months, Trump has also gone after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) with cutting and sometimes personal insults.
.. Republican lawmakers and operatives have voiced exasperation that Trump is spending his time attacking senators he will need as allies if he hopes to sign any signature legislation.
.. Corker was a prominent supporter of Trump’s 2016 campaign and one of the few Republicans with gravitas willing to embrace the reality television star’s candidacy before he won the GOP nomination.
.. Corker also helped tutor Trump on foreign affairs, and he in turn considered the senator as a possible running mate and secretary of state.
.. In August, Corker criticized Trump’s handling of the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, saying, “The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.”
.. Corker urged Trump to visit Alabama and campaign alongside Strange in the closing days of the runoff campaign, and the president now partly blames Corker for encouraging him to get involved in a contest that has hurt his political standing
.. thinks Corker feels free to speak his mind now that he is not seeking reelection.
When Judge Roy Moore Comes to Washington
Moore’s primary win is a fire bell in the night for GOP senators in 2018. And should he defeat his Democratic opponent, the judge will be coming to Capitol Hill, gunning for Mitch McConnell.
.. If a law contradicts God’s law, it is invalid, nonbinding. In some cases, civil disobedience, deliberate violation of such a law, may be the moral duty of a Christian.
Moore believes God’s Law is even above the Constitution, at least as interpreted by recent Supreme Courts.
.. Homosexuality, an abomination in the Old Testament, Moore sees as “an inherent evil.” When the high court, in Obergefell v. Hodges, discovered a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Moore, back on the Alabama court, defied the decision, was suspended again, and resigned.
.. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King wrote: “(T)here are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘An unjust law is no law at all.’…
.. In his Declaration, Jefferson wrote that all men are endowed by their “Creator” with inalienable rights, and among these is the right to life.
Many Christians believe that what the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade — declare an unborn child’s right to life contingent upon whether its mother wishes to end it — violates God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.
.. Thomas More is considered by Catholics to be a saint and moral hero for defying Henry VIII’s demand, among others, that he endorse a lie, that the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was not adultery.
Early Christians accepted martyrdom rather than obey laws of the Caesars and burn incense to the gods of Rome.
After Hitler took power in 1933, he authorized the eradication of “useless eaters” in the Third Reich. Those who condemned these laws as violations of God’s law, and even attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1944, are today regarded as moral heroes.
.. Christianity and the moral truths it has taught for 2,000 years have been deposed from the pre-eminent position they held until after World War II, and are now rejected as a source of law. They have been replaced by the tenets of a secular humanism that is the prevailing orthodoxy of our new cultural, social and intellectual elites.